Serious, activism matters (and seriously, my sig was never an attempt at activism). Awareness matters, people need to talk about the problem for what you would call meaningful action to be noticed, to be understood, to be supported. Some people will get annoyed at the activism because if it wasn't a contentious issue then there wouldn't be a problem. Some activists will be loopy and counter-productive (which the critics will try to solely focus on) but if a movement has merit it can generally overcome these setbacks.

I "credit" the Westboro cult with helping get marriage equality sooner, that was counter-productive. Their activism made being against gay marriage toxic, which accelerated the rate at which the rest of the movement's lack of merit was exposed.

This comment was edited on Mar 14, 2018, 14:13.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Gotta admit, had to check I wasn't reading The Onion. Politics aside, this article deserves some kind of prize for its unintentional comedic value.

Or worse, intentional satire disguised as a serious OP ED. If you read the entire text satirical it also makes a lot more sense.

Maybe it's more insidious than that. Maybe it's a Russian troll out to stir up the right by passing this ridiculousness off as part of 'The Liberal Agenda'

This isn't unusual for The Guardian. I consider their news reporting to be among the best in the world, but their opinion section can be incredibly hand-wringy. They could have had a point about GamerGate and 4chan, although as others have said that's not a cause but a symptom.

Pretty sure Tropico is completely communist anyway. Even if you take the most capitalist options, you're still the government running every business and controlling every citizen.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Definitely report on the event, the victims, even the killer - but save reporting on the killer to a dry paragraph deep in the article or towards the end of the TV segment. Inform, but don't make killers famous.

I feel like that speaks to my point. If people will snap up Rolling Stone magazine to learn more about the Boston bomber, doesn't that suggest that if large media outlets don't report this kind of information, people will find somewhere that does?

I think the question is, do people want to know more about these killers? And if the answer is yes, we're kind of stuck because that kind of thing's easy to find on the Internet. And it also gives free rein to sites that swear that the Florida shooter was an anti-NRA Democrat, or a member of a white supremacist group, or whatever.

Although, I may not be understanding the context here. That Rolling Stone cover is pretty extreme, literally a rock star treatment. I don't think most shooters get that.

Thankfully no, they don't. That's the worst I've seen.

This information does need to be out there, both because people have a right to know and because, as you say, people will find out anyway and proper reporting is at least somewhat more reliable than most sources. Speaking of the Boston marathon bombing, afterwards Reddit was pointing out every brown person with a backpack who was there.

It would be nice if all large media outlets be more responsible (less focus on the killer) but there's no reason why they would. I don't know of any way to enforce responsible reporting even in countries without the 1st amendment.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Agent.X7 wrote on Mar 9, 2018, 14:10:Right, because nobody does this for the instant notoriety the press issues them. Oh, wait...

Why do they do it has many answers and no one really knows for sure which would have the biggest impact. Would not repeating there names or making a big deal about it on the news prevent them? Maybe. I do think that's one avenue that could be looked into.

How they do it though is a well known and solvable problem.

I'll bend a little on 1st amendment if you do on 2nd. Fines or losing tax breaks for news organizations above a certain income who report on stories in ways that may lead to copycats. If the penalties are to the corporation and not to individuals I'm kinda OK with that.

It just seems unworkable to me in the Internet age. What kind of reporting leads to copycats? Is the idea that the news outlets don't even report on the school shooting? Students and teachers dead, the area cordoned off with SWAT teams and helicopters on scene, communication on publicly available police and emergency radio bands, and the local and national outlets just agree not to say anything about it? People posting about their dead children or classmates, and nothing? Someone gets booked on 17 counts of first degree murder and no one jumps on that publicly available information? So they just leave it to bloggers?

It just seems to me that the end game would be people getting all their news from sites that don't even have reporters. Or is that we want to immediately jump to a state-owned media, like the totalitarian Chinese, and straight up imprison people for crimes against the state to scare them into submission?

Definitely report on the event, the victims, even the killer - but save reporting on the killer to a dry paragraph deep in the article or towards the end of the TV segment. Inform, but don't make killers famous.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

RedEye9 wrote on Mar 4, 2018, 14:58:Three Billboards and Get Out were both excellent movies in their own right, but I don't know if they are Best Movie territory. Have not seen Shape of H2O or I Tonja.Both Mother! and Lady Bird were enjoyable.The Apes movie was meh, same for Dunkirk and Blade Runner did not hold a candle to the original.

A bunch of the Oscar movies are on Amazon Prime streaming. I saw Shape of Water and Lady Bird up there last night.

Also love me some Sam Rockwell. Hoping he wins too.

You're in luck.

Three Billboards has a hell of a cast.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

JayDeath wrote on Mar 4, 2018, 17:03:I'm finally understanding how I should be playing KC:D. It's a bugfest atm but it's really something special.

Some say it's the new Gothic, i suppose (if we refer to Gothic 2 which is the best of the series IMHO), if true then it's indeed very special.

I've been following it; the initial reaction was that it was buggy but beyond that, it's an excellent game. I hear the combat is love-it-or-hate-it. How buggy is it now?

Non-fantasy medieval is interesting to me. It's not a time period I'm particularly interested in, but every time I play a fantasy game I wonder what it would be like without magic/etc - and if a dev goes down this less flashy route, it makes sense to go for a slower, more realistic pace.

I loved Gothic 3 + Community patch. Half the ambition of The Elderscrolls, twice the heart.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Weird how Trump supporters like ventry are so keen to tie everything to the election. It's almost like they've had a 13 month long dumpster fire with nothing to show for it. Well, tax cuts for billionaires. Well done.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Prez wrote on Mar 2, 2018, 13:32:Maybe I'm the only one that thinks having a summit at the White House with game developers is a FAR better solution than the President immediately holding a press conference calling on Congress to come up with anti-gaming legislatuon. It's no secret that politicians and old people generally have no understanding of the games industry. And Washington is chock full of both. This is an opportunity for the industry representatives to educate some very significant and powerful politicians. The worst that can happen is that the President and whoever else attends choose to not listen and remain willfully ignorant, in which case nothing is lost. On the other hand, the possibility exists that the old out-of-touch dinosaurs might actually learn something. Maybe they will even learn enough to avoid sounding like idiots when the subject of violence in games inevitably comes up again. Hey a guy can dream.

That's how I see it. More pessimistic than you, but not that they'll learn something, but that they'll just forget.

It's good that they might be willing to listen, but it's ridiculous that they need this conversion. Even if they are as out of touch as they sound, they should be informed by their own people that this is a bad idea before anything is said publicly.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

In fact all violent crime has seen a downward trend over the past 20 years.

That's something you never see on the news, because scaring people gets better ratings/more viewers.

There's also less to report. Studies into trends in violent crime can't dominate a news cycle, even in less sensationalist media. Bad things often happen suddenly, good things are more likely to happen gradually.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

The USA is on par with 3rd world countries that are experiencing civil war, or Mexico where there are drug wars raging. At the moment the rest of civilized world is looking at you like the retarded bullies that you are..

But high-power guns like AR-15s have so many uses apart from killing. What can you do with a knife apart from kill people?

Oh wait, that's stupid. Maybe gun control would be a good idea.

(Joking aside, I was making fun of NicklePop's "I don't understand it therefore it doesn't make sense" interpretation of hypocrisy.)

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Quboid wrote on Feb 17, 2018, 10:15:Oh look, the literal Nazi sympathiser who links to extremist content is complaining about people being concerned about extremists again.

Oh look, the progressive that thinks everyone who doesn't agree with their view of the world is a nazi. What a world to live in, do you check under your bed for people in shiny boots before you go to sleep?

I'm sure it helps you to pretend that this is true, but you know it's not. It's just you, because of your specific actions.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke